


The Letter, aka The Fifth Touch

by Elke Tanzer (elke_tanzer)



Category: Ranma 1/2
Genre: Community: wip_amnesty, Genderswap, Introspection, Masturbation, Other, Unresolved Sexual Tension, genderbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-07
Updated: 2004-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elke_tanzer/pseuds/Elke%20Tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few years after the events of the anime and manga, Ranma and Akane have finally begun to talk to each other.  But Ranma thinks that some things might be easier to write a letter about than talk about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Letter, aka The Fifth Touch

**Author's Note:**

> I have no clue where the idea for this story came from, but once it arrived, it had to be written. And yes, I know that this version of Ranma is much more self-aware than the Ranma we see in either the anime or the manga canon... I'm hypothesizing that once they hit college-age, some of the teenagers will get some amount of clue.
> 
> Yes, it's a complete story, it's just not done to my liking and I don't know if I'll ever be able to make it work the way I wanted it to.

Ever since we promised our parents, really promised, that we'd be serious about the engagement, I've wanted to tell you this stuff. I feel like you have the right to know. And if I'm a horrible pervert for any of it, I will understand if you want to break off the engagement. I'll do whatever you tell me, leave the city immediately if you want me to. You have my word on that. You'll never have to look at me again, and I'll take all of the blame with your father and my parents, without telling them the real reasons why unless you want me to.

I know you never asked for an engagement, especially to a man who is cursed. And I know that you've hated me in the past. Even though you still sometimes get really angry with me, I know that you don't hate me now (or at least, you didn't when I started writing this letter, but you might change your mind after you read it). I know being honest with you about how beautiful you are really changed things between us. I mean, if we hadn't had that talk, we would never have eventually talked about how it makes you feel when I rescue you from things, and that was a pretty amazing conversation. If we hadn't talked about all of that, we probably wouldn't have finally gotten around to talking about Love at all, huh?

I want to be honest with you, because it's the honorable thing, but also because I wouldn't want you to lie to me. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life secretly hating me. I want it out in the open between us if I really disgust you, for both our sakes. Make the cut clean, the punch solid, you know?

I don't know now if I'm brave enough to hand this to you, because you're as fast as ever with that mallet of yours. I don't know how I'm going to wait for you to finish reading it if I do give it to you, or what your reaction is going to be. Maybe I should just crumple up this version and burn it with the others. And I'm sorry about the bad penmanship... I've never gotten good at that, even now.

But... what if... what if you would hate me if you read this, and we get married without you knowing? Without me knowing?

And what if you _wouldn't_ hate me if you read this? What if you've always thought worse of me than this? Though that brings up the question of what you _did_ think I'd be capable of... no, I don't want to know. Or do I? Maybe you're just as messed up as I am. That might be... nice. In a scary sort of way.

Man, if we get through this, I think I'll know that we can talk about _anything_. Maybe even a couple of other matters about my honor and the other fiancee situations, because I don't think even now you understand some stuff about that... and maybe we'll even talk about that whole Forever thing.

All that I ask, and I'm going to talk to you about it before I hand you this letter (IF! If I hand you this letter!) is that no matter what, you destroy this letter when you're done reading it. In exchange for my honesty I ask for your word that you will not share this with anyone. Please. It will be hard enough for me to know that you know. And it's probably in both of our best interests for this stuff to be secret.

So I'm asking, as one martial artist to another, on your honor and on mine, such as it is, for that promise from you.

Yeah, I can be serious. And I am.

You seem to always think the worst of me, and it's time we came clean about this whole issue... it's pretty embarrassing, but you've seen me in full cat-fu, and under the influence of I don't know how many poisons and spells of Kodachi's and Shampoo's, so...

So. About that pervert thing:

I don't think I'm a pervert. Well, not as much of one as some other people we know. Sometimes I worry that I might be headed that way, or that I already am, and that's kind of why I get so mad when you call me one. Here's why.

The first time I sorta touched myself, it was out of necessity. The human body can only go without passing waste for so long, you know? You have no idea how weird it felt that first time as a girl. Took me a while to stop freaking out long enough to relax, and boy, was that uncomfortable. I can't really explain it, I don't have the words, but when a guy has to go really bad, it feels different than when a girl does. It's uncomfortable either way, though. And I sometimes have to remind myself that girls have to do a little bit more cleanup than guys do, afterwards.

The second time I touched myself, I mean actually touched, it was simple curiosity, and I worried for months afterward if I'd taken an unforgivable step towards being a pervert. I guess I'm still unsure about that.

I didn't really do anything, just wanted to figure out what was down there. My hand trembled a little bit. It wasn't fear, because I'm not afraid of anything. It was just weird. I mean, you know what's supposed to be there, and you put your hand there, and it's not there. It's just... _not_. You feel your belly, and then the hair, but your... part... just isn't there, and there's not anything that says it ever was, which is almost as freaky.

Instead, the mound under your hand curves more, fills your palm once you get bold enough to actually put your hand flat against it. And your fingers just sort of move on their own, slipping lower. Then they stop, because you've realized that your mound doesn't just feel different to your hand, it makes you feel different when it's touched. You realize that if that sort of touch feels different, then every other touch down there from that point lower is gonna feel even more different. And that makes you worry about being a pervert, so you keep your fingertips away from the center because you almost don't want to know, and touch one side, further down near the top of your leg, instead. And that's OK, so you keep going, moving a bit more toward your center, but then there's a lip of skin there, sort of where you expect the side of your... package... to be, and it's softer, slicker than it normally would be, and you don't know if it feels really sensitive just because you're worried that you're going to like touching yourself too much, or whether it's just always like that for girls.

It doesn't feel particularly good, just sensitive. And that's enough to make you lose patience. Well, it was enough to make me lose patience, anyway. I cursed a bit, at myself and at the world in general, then just opened my legs and bent over and _looked_. I took myself in both hands and poked and prodded and held things open and pushed things shut and, jeez, is stuff sensitive down there. And then I kind of curled up and let myself freak for a while, because for once, I could. Nobody interrupted me in the bath, and no one had done anything to keep me from just turning on the hot water and being me again, so I had this luxury of just time. Do you understand how rare that sort of time has been for me in my life? It's really, really rare.

I waited until the adrenaline rush of fight or flight had passed before I turned back into a guy, though. One thing that Pop always taught me was that if you know you've got a freaky reaction to something, you've got to figure out what it feels like, and then figure out how to deal with it, before you're in a battle situation. You may not be able to know all about your opponent, but if you don't know all about yourself, you're going into the battle at a disadvantage. And Pop always takes every advantage he can get, going into a fight, and taught me to do the same... though he'd probably pound me if he figured out that I'd taken that teaching to heart about my girl parts.

The third time I touched myself, it was necessity again. I hadn't been near hot water in weeks, and suddenly I had to deal with the reality that my female form is all female, with all the inconveniences that come with that. Did you suspect that if I'm female for a whole month or so, I bleed? I still haven't really finished freaking about that. I mean, if I can bleed, I can carry a baby, right? And that scares the hell out of me, even though I'm not scared of anything. Not that I'd ever want to, but that this body could... Brrrrr.

The fourth time I touched myself, it was frustration. I was a teenaged boy... of course I pleasured myself sometimes. (Even the most innocent of girls of college age know about that, right? If you don't, I'm sorry if this offends you or grosses you out or stuff. Guys are just like that. Maybe it's gross or perverted or whatever, but all guys do it. Take my word on that.) It was either that or get painfully hard at inconvenient times, which happened more frequently than I want to admit anyway. Besides, if you're awake and take care of it, that means you're less likely to mess the sheets, and we all made enough work for Kasumi as it was without me having to sneak in extra loads of laundry in between her wash schedule.

Normally, it wouldn't have been a big deal, I just would have waited until I was a guy again, but I couldn't. Turn back, I mean. Damned curse. It's bad enough that I change, but that there's any number of things that can make it so that I can't turn back? Really sucks. And gives my enemies that know me well an obvious starting point to plan their attacks, unfortunately. But at least not all of my enemies know techniques like the full body cat tongue, or I'd be in real trouble.

Anyway, I was horny, and frustrated, and stuck on the idea of having to be a girl for a very long time. Oh, yeah, sure, I could have just married Shampoo and been a guy again right away, but that was no answer. I also knew that part of why I felt so desperate was that it'd been a while, you know? And that was a disadvantage I could get rid of, if I could just... take care of it. As a girl.

Yeah, I know. Perverted. That's part of why I was so mad. I mean, because of them, it was either marry Shampoo, try to battle Cologne in a fight I didn't expect to win, live the rest of my life as a girl _and_ frightfully sensitive to all heat, or surrender some of my honor and ethics and do something perverted just to get my mind clear enough to try to figure out some other option. There had to be another option... some way of evening the gap between Cologne and I, enough to beat her and get the cure, if I could just figure it out. So I didn't really have much of a choice... but I know now and I knew at the time that I was really taking a step that I couldn't take back.

So I did it.

I slid my fingers down there and touched on purpose. I even put one finger a little ways up inside, which was a pretty bizarre thing but didn't actually do much for me. I took the lips and then the nub in the center between my fingertips and sort of carefully pinched. I touched and rubbed some more, and made myself kind of raw, actually. But I finally came.

It helped, sort of. But I also kind of figured out then that coming really is different for guys and girls. Well, at least my guy form and my girl form. My girl form isn't done with only one, if you know what I mean, and I didn't understand that. I wondered if coming just isn't as satisfying or something for girls, or if I hadn't actually gotten there, or if... and this would be even worse: if I wouldn't be ever really satisfied unless I was a guy again and could just jerk off and feel better.

If you've read this far, you better not be laughing at me. It was all really serious back at the time.

The idea that you're actually going to read all this... part of me is convinced you'll throw this letter down in disgust and swear you never want to see or speak to me again. Part of me is convinced that you won't even get past the first mention of perverted stuff. Part of me really doesn't want you to read any of this. I mean, what if you actually know the truth and decide that I'm a bigger pervert than your wildest imagined fears?

I'm not sure if I want to know that. I mean... this isn't coming out right, no matter how many times I rewrite it, but... right now, I can just think to myself that whatever makes you think I'm a horrible person are just misunderstandings. Incomplete information. Misperceptions. After you read this, I won't really be able to say that to myself. If you hate me, it'll be for reasons, true reasons, of my own doing. And that makes me feel... sick. Bad. Awful inside.

That isn't really right, either. I just don't have the right words, and for that, I'm sorry. I really thought that maybe writing this would be easier than talking. But even with time and peace and quiet (that's been so damned rare in my life these past few years), I don't have the right words to explain what it does to me to anticipate your reactions to this stuff.

Like I told you, I'm not scared of anything. I can't afford to be. But that doesn't mean that facing some of this stuff isn't really, really hard. It... It matters what you think of me. And yeah, I know I've told you otherwise over the years. I wasn't being honest with you, or with myself. But I can't go back in time... I can only try to be honest with you now...

I suppose I can't avoid this any longer, though, I mean, I've gone this far...

The fifth time I touched myself, it was for pleasure.

I could lie and tell you that it was just preparation in case I ever got stuck as a girl again, making sure I wasn't taking any of my own disadvantages into some future fight. I could tell you that it was just because I was bored or something. But I can't lie to you about this. That's the whole point of this letter, and all of the rewritten versions of it that I've crumpled up and burned, just trying to get this down on paper because I didn't know how to talk to you about this stuff.

The truth is: I wanted to know whether I'd have to rub myself raw to get off as a girl. I wanted to know if girls could feel as good as guys do, I mean really good... satisfied. I wanted to feel good, without the feeling of being trapped and only having to choose between different dishonorable ways out. I wanted... I also wanted... you. I wanted to have you under my hands. I wanted to feel you. And as much as all of that, I wanted you to want me. I wanted to please you, to see your expression as you lost yourself in feeling good. But I knew you didn't want to have anything to do with me.

If I think about it too much, I start to hate myself. I'm such a hypocrite sometimes. I mean, it was such a big deal the fourth time, choosing a dishonorable path as the means to a more honorable end. But after the fifth time I kind of wanted to do it more. I didn't do it all the time or anything like that... I didn't let it interfere with my training or anything else, of course. But I figured out how to please my girl form, what ~~it~~ ~~she~~ I like, what feels good. If all girls' bodies are like this... I'm amazed. I mean, I can just tense up certain muscles, without even touching myself, and it feels so good... and sometimes, I just come from that. And not just once. Guys can't do that! When guys come, it feels different, and guys can do all sorts of other stuff, but girl parts are just amazing.

Sometimes I wonder if you ever do anything like this, if any girls do anything like this. I mean, I'd guess you do, I mean girls in general, because though we're different in all sorts of ways, I can't imagine that only guys think about this stuff. We're all human, you know?

I think it's kind of dishonorable to talk about too many details of what happens between two people to others, but I'm not sure about talking about what one person does by themself. Girls talk about their dates with their friends, I know they do. But I don't think girls talk about this stuff. I mean, guys don't, unless they're just bragging in rude ways about their conquests, or whining about their lack of prospects. So I've never asked anyone.

Maybe my girl form is some sort of weird mutant or something. I almost don't want to know.

I don't go out of my way to pleasure myself as a girl. Really. But I don't really shy away from it, either. Maybe I should, I don't know. Most times when I want to feel good, I really want to feel good as a guy, but sometimes... this is so hard to actually write! Sometimes I kind of want the different feelings I get feeling good as a girl.

If you haven't decided that you hate my guts by now... I'm going to be surprised. I sometimes hate me about this.

But sometimes when you and I look at each other, after we've been through something pretty dangerous, or pretty intense, I sometimes think I see something in your eyes... something that looks like a hunger, a wanting, to feel good. To feel kind of wild. And I wonder whether you do the same sorts of things I sometimes do, when you're alone in your room or the bath.

And no, I've never tried to peep in on you to find out. Honest. I've never tried to peep in on anybody to find out this stuff. That's just... wrong.

I know I've said this before, but our kisses have been _really_ nice. Holding you, touching your face or your arm and just running my fingertips along, well, that feels really nice, too. And lately we seem to be moving toward doing more than that. It took us so many years to move from hating being together, to holding hands, to kissing... We're moving faster now than we ever have. I'm not sure you really want that faster pace, and I'm not sure if I want to, either. I'm not scared or anything, I just don't know.

I do know that I like the idea of pleasing you. I like the idea that I won't be a like bumbling idiot the first time I touch you that way. But maybe you won't feel the same way, and think that this is just, as you've said, me being a pervert, or me and my giant ego, or me being some sort of Cassanoma or whatever. But honest, I don't think it's that... I don't want it to be that, anyway. I'm finally getting the hang of being nice to you more often, not hiding behind excuses and fake insults, you know? And I think it's kind of cool that I won't be as likely as I otherwise would have been to hurt you by mistake, by doing something stupid that I've learned feels uncomfortable to my girl form.

I wish I had better words to describe all this. I sometimes wish I had someone I could talk to about this that isn't involved in the chaos that's my life. But no one can ever give me any advice on this, because as far as I know, no one else has gone through it.

And since I've gone this far... I might as well go all the way, if you're still reading this. Right? Honesty. Yeah.

I have a couple of packets of instant spring-of-drowned-boy. I've been saving them for a while, in case I needed them for some battle or other, but honestly, there's not much that they'd help me with, since they're only instant. And yes, I'm very sure that they're instant, not permanent. So if you ever want to know what it's really been like for me, and we can figure out some way of getting away from everyone we know for a while so you're not interrupted or blackmailed or any of a million things that could go wrong... well, it's an option.

I'm not really sure if it's a good idea or not, but I don't know... maybe you won't think so badly of me if you know more of how it's really been for me, what it really feels like to change. Not that I expect sympathy or anything like that! And I'm not saying it because of all that old tomboy stuff, either. You're a really strong person, and that's not a bad thing for a girl to be, and I'm finally getting over using the whole uncute defense to keep you and I apart against the pressure from our fathers. I just mean... oh, I don't know what I mean. I guess I should just end this letter now. It's already longer than anything I've written that wasn't homework.

No matter what, I really care about you. A lot. Never doubt that.

Ranma

**Author's Note:**

> More background blathering about this genderbendy fic, since I posted it as part of WiPs Out Of The Closet Day...
> 
> Bah. I wanted to deal with Ranma figuring out how to masturbate out of sheer frustration while a girl, and because every message in his life has told him that female sexuality is dangerous and perverted and Just Not Done, have him actually questioning whether Akane's been right all along, and that he's really a pervert.
> 
> This is introspective and hung-up Ranma with issues, dealing with the fact that certain things feel different for girls and guys, and that he needs to be honest with Akane about it before things go too much farther between them.
> 
> This is set sometime years down the road from canon... I ended up thinking of him as late-college age at least, probably older, in my mind, because otherwise (1) I couldn't make him take Akane's commitment to their relationship seriously, even though they've saved each other's lives multiple times in canon and she's willing to do her family duty for various reasons in later canon... and (2) because I just couldn't make high-school-aged Ranma rational enough to be this introspective. Lastly, I had trouble with the format... it needs to be from Ranma's point of view, but he'd never get through all of this actually speaking to Akane. Nerima standard chaos would always intervene.
> 
> So I wrote it as a letter... ignoring the issues that (1) canon Ranma has pitiful penmanship and (2) probably wouldn't want any permanent record of this, even on burnable paper. Maybe he's just composing the letter in his head? I don't know. All I know is that Ranma was in my head and he wouldn't leave until I typed this out. And he said that he'd somehow managed to have some Real Conversations with Akane, so I had to believe him. So this perversion issue is A Really Big Thing that looms in his mind about his relationship with Akane, near in importance but not quite as big as the curse, his honor and their impending marriage. Or so he said to me...
> 
> Bah. I never figured out how to fix it or to improve it, and offers of beta-reading in this fandom never worked out for a variety of reasons. So, out of the closet! Shoo!
> 
> Additional notes: This little fic was inspired by the following adult content stories. Big thanks to all of these authors.
> 
> \- Richard Lawson's Thy Outward Part lemon side stories - note that you'll want to read the series in proper order.  
> \-- Technical Virginity by Sebastian Weinberg  
> \-- The Risk by Lara Bartram  
> \-- Those Tears are Pearl by Richard Lawson  
> \- Richard Lawson's Thy Inward Love lemon side story: Needs and Desires - note that you'll want to read the series in proper order.  
> \- Return of the Instant Nannichuan standalone by Chris Jones - Prequel to Fantasy Life. Ranma learns about Akane's likes and preferences.  
> \- Fantasy Life standalone by Chris Jones - Ranma and Akane explore a mature, adult relationship as only the two of them can. Will Ryouga ruin everything for them?  
> \- Hot and Cold Running Ranma standalone by Chris Jones - Ranma's having a wet dream, and the rest of Furinkan High is there to make matters worse. Ranma doesn't even have a chance to fight back since the damn pandas won't stop laughing at her!  
> \- Ridgewolfe's Ascending Changes lemon side story: The Wedding Night - note that you'll want to read the series in proper order.


End file.
